AN ODE TO EYES

Thanks to Harry Potter and horn-rimmed hipsters, eyeglass wearers have never been more ubiquitous—or profitable. With a whopping $35 billion in retail sales, the U.S. vision care market is only growing; it’s no wonder, considering that 30% of the U.S. population is nearsighted, while an additional 10% of the population is farsighted. Most people can relate to the everyday annoyances of grimy glasses and dropped contacts; but far fewer have even heard of anophthalmia, an extremely rare condition in which one or both eyes completely fail to form.